Talking Re-Enchantment at P2PI LIVE

During her opening keynote address at P2PI LIVE & Expo, Wunderman Thompson’s Marie Stafford described how we are entering the age of re-enchantment.

“What this is about is a really exciting opportunity for brands to leverage the power of emotion to really lift people out of the malaise,” Stafford, global director at Wunderman Thompson, said Wednesday in St. Louis.

“So, just a quick warning. I'm going to make you miserable,” she said as she began reciting results from a Wunderman Thompson survey of 3,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K. and China:

• 85% of people seem to have less time for one another these days.
• 67% said technology makes them more detached from the real world.
• the top issue facing U.S. consumers are inflation, climate change, poverty and hunger, access to affordable healthcare, and mental health.

On a more positive note, many are yearning for re-enchantment:

• 77% just want to feel something, to feel alive.
• 74% feel like they are waiting for something good to happen.
• 65% say brands should make more effort to wow them.
• 70% can’t remember the last time a brand did anything that excited them.
• respondents would be more likely to purchase if a brand brings them joy, surprises or delights them, or relieves their stress.

Stafford then offered three “territories” where brands can deliver:

1. New emotional brands KPIs. Sixty-one percent say they want brands to help them feel intense emotions; 89% say awe-inspiring experiences make them feel good; 78% say those experiences make them feel more connected to the world. Also, 66% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents say they like to feel a few goosebumps every now and then.
2. Escape the hyper-rational. “Surprise is more pleasurable than pleasure itself,” Stafford said. Also, serendipity sells: 74% said they enjoy an element of mystery and surprise, and 67% of Gen Z respondents said they love anything that taps into surrealism or dreamlike concepts.
3. Radical reconnection. Seventy-one percent of respondents said loneliness is an epidemic. Stafford quoted psychologist and author Dacher Keltner as saying, “The fundamental social challenge of the era is how to rebuild community that has been lost.”

Stafford also provided three thought starters for the marketers in attendance:

1. Shivers of delight? Heart swells? Tears of happiness? What would be your brand’s emotional KPIs? 
2. An enchantment mindset that evokes joy, awe, mystery and magic is prosocial and helps people transcend the everyday.
3. Can you engineer moments of reconnection and help people find their way back to togetherness?